Cellular telephone communications protocols, such as the Short Message Service (SMS), also known as PCS Messaging, Text Messaging, Voice Mail Plus, Cellular Message Teleservice (CMT), and Cellular Alpha Paging, allow for the transmission of short text-only messages to a cellular telephone, referred to herein as a mobile station (MS). In the SMS protocol a telephone number may be attached to an SMS message that is sent to an MS, allowing the recipient of an SMS message to replay to the message, either by dialing the telephone number indicated, or, in some implementations, simply by pressing the “SEND” button or otherwise initiating a telephone call from the MS without dialing the telephone number. In those implementations that support it, initiating a telephone call while displaying an SMS message to which a telephone number has been attached will cause the telephone number to be automatically dialed.
Some commercial message services employ known computer telephony integration (CTI) techniques to enable a subscriber to receive voice mail, email, and other types of messages at a central computer server which then forwards notifications of the arrival of such messages to the subscriber's MS in the form of SMS messages. The SMS message may simply be a generic notification that a message has been received for the subscriber at the server, or may contain a portion of the message in a text format, aiding the subscriber in identifying the sender and/or determining the message's importance to the subscriber. In order to hear the full message the subscriber may then call the message service by dialing a telephone number known to the subscriber or, where the telephone number of the message service is attached to each SMS message, by pressing the “SEND” button or otherwise initiating the call as described above.
Once the message service has been contacted, the subscriber must identify the message that the subscriber wishes to hear. This may be done by reading the content of the SMS message to a operator or by navigating an automated menu system that is responsive to voice commands or dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signals. In the case of an automated menu system, the subscriber generally must listen to a portion of each message received and then provide an indication whether or not the subscriber wishes to hear the complete message. Where tens of SMS message notifications are received at an MS, navigating such a menu system is tedious and time-consuming.